Research Interests
Open to PhD applications in the field of
- Irish social history
- migration history
- crime history
- women's or gender history
Public outreach & key achievements
- Bad Bridget exhibition at the Ulster American Folk Park, 2022-2025
- My co-authored monograph, Bad Bridget: Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women (Penguin Sandycove, 2023) went to #1 in the Irish non-fiction book charts. It was selected as Dubray book of the month, January 2023; RTÉ book of the week February 2023; and Waterstones Irish Book of the Month, January 2024.
- My second book, Women, Crime and Punishment in Ireland: Life in the Nineteenth-Century Convict Prison (Cambridge University Press, 2020) won the Irish Historical Research Prize Special Commendation.
- My first book, ‘A most diabolical dead’: infanticide and Irish society, 1850-1900 (Manchester University Press, 2013) won the National University of Ireland Publication Prize.
- I have much media experience and have featured on RTÉ 1 (The Tommy Tiernan Show); Virgin Media (IrelandAM); UTV; Channel 4; BBC (Who do you think you are?); and TG4. I have also radio experience, including on BBC Ulster; RTÉ 1; 2FM; TodayFM; CBC Toronto; Radio 4 (Woman's Hour); Dublin South FM; Live95FM; BBC Radio Foyle; and Kildare FM.
Research students
| PhD Title | ‘Sibling relations in Protestant middle-class sibling Ulster families, c.1850-1900’ |
| Name | Shannon Devlin |
| PhD Title | ‘Non-elite clothing acquisition in post-Famine Ulster’ |
| Name | Eliza McKee |
| PhD Title | ‘The institutional care of Ireland’s elderly female population, 1845-1908’ |
| Name | Sarah McHugh |
| PhD Title | ‘Cultural perceptions of Irish Roman Catholic women religious, 1849-1907’ |
| Name | Bridget Harrison |
Alumni: Where are they now
| PhD Title | ‘Sibling relations in Protestant middle-class sibling Ulster families, c.1850-1900’ |
| Name | Shannon Devlin |
| Current Position | Lecturer, University of Galway |
| PhD Title | ‘Non-elite clothing acquisition in post-Famine Ulster’ |
| Name | Eliza McKee |
| Current Position | National Archives UK |